Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Customer Service Policies Tourism Essay

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Customer Service Policies Tourism Essay The London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square is a 5 star hotel that is located in the Central London near to the Oxford Street and Park Lane. It is one of the classic hotels in England. The hotel has 236 luxurious bedrooms and 45 Club Level bedrooms with many facilities like Club Lounge, Wi-Fi Internet access, versatile meeting and event space, Maze  Restaurant, Maze Grill, Complimentary, fitness centre, 24-hour room service. (MARRIOTT, 2010) The hotel is located in Central London which has many tourist spots and centre of attractions around the locality. Some of the tourist spots nearby the hotel are: The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Theatre district, Madame Tussaud, Covent Garden, Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, Oxford Street/Bond Street shopping, The Tate Modern, The British Museum, Big Bus London Tours, The Tower of London. These tourist spots are within walk able distance from this hotel which attracts more of tourists. This saves them a lot of money from spending on transportation. Thus, tourists choose this hotel for their stay so that they have much more time to explore these tourist spots. As mentioned above Central London is not only a tourist spot but also a place full of Information Technology corridor and some of the main industrys head quarters are located here as well. The business customers and corporate choose this hotel because it saves a lot of time and money. Marriott also provides good banqueting and boardroom facilities that are used to organise meetings and the banquets are also put to good use. The hotel provides lots of facilities and services to the corporate such as group check in, bill to the company etc. which provides good hospitality. The hotel also includes The Maze, which is a restaurant created by the world famous celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay. Its one of the famous French and Asian blend restaurants in London. Thus this is one of the key reasons that there are many celebrities who choose to dine in this restaurant often. Few family customers also visit this restaurant during the weekends to experience one of the fine dining restaurants in London. Due to its locality, Marriott attracts worldwide celebrities who come to London for world premiers. The hotel is also frequented by sports personalities who have their after win celebrations. CUSTOMER CARE POLICIES: Marriott has many customer care policies which they are very keen on following to attract people from all corners. Marriott has a very unique method of marketing and also takes utmost care in making the customers stay a pleasure hence increasing the chances for them to come back. In this Marriott, the personal information of the residents is stored in the database. This database is securely stored to prevent non-breaching. This database is shared by all the Marriott across the world. This enables them to send a greeting card or a gift for their customer on the occasion of birthdays and anniversaries no matter where they are in the world. Because of the inter relationships between the chains, this is achievable. According to surveys this method has been really beneficial in bringing back the customers, hence ensuring excellent customer care. When it comes to corporate/business customers, Marriott follows mutual profit dealing. Marriott often maintains a relationship with regular customers from corporate companies. For a certain number of customers, Marriott provides discounts and additional services if the company for which the customer works has a tie up with Marriott. Under the package, even banqueting and board rooms can be provided for free based on the particular organisation. This includes accommodation in reduced price. The company ensures that the connection with the hotel is beneficial by using the services and hence increase the times of usage of the hotel. In the other hand, the hotel confirms a constant flow of customers. This can be considered as a profitable circle and hence its unique way of standing out from the crowd. As mentioned before, Gordon Ramsays restaurant, The Maze, always has the capacity to attract people. People who want to taste the authentic French cuisine blended with Asian from the kitchen of a world famous chef always makes The Maze the centre of attraction. Due to the world premier of movies in theatres nearby, Marriott has seen an array of celebrities. And celebrities always attract crowd because of which Marriott increases its growth. Marriott ensures special attention, security and privacy for high profile people who need them the most. Privacy for these people is even provided in restaurants by providing special separate seating arrangements and hence keeping them away from the watchful eyes. These qualities make Marriot one of the most desired places to stay for the celebrities and hence ensuring a perfect service for different type of customers. IMPORTANCE OF ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER CARE: A customer is an individual or group of individuals to whom you supply one or more products or services. (Smith, 2004:6). Customer care involves putting systems in place to maximise your customers satisfaction with your business. It should be a prime consideration for every business   your sales and profitability depends on keeping your customers happy. (Business Link, 2010). The success of any business is hugely depended upon providing effective customer care. Customer care is all about customer satisfaction. If an organisation can make an experience as a memorable moment, then there will be more return customers. Establishing effective customer care gives the organisation a high return and also the profit. Loyal customers are the one who are to be given extra care as they are worthy. In this competitive world, the competition in the market is also very high. Customers are demanding for good service, good response to the complaints, and are demanding for extra bit of attention. Thus it is necessary for the organisation to prove a point to the customer that they really care for their customers. The expectations of the customers have been constantly rising. To meet these expectations, the organisation must consistently analyse the level of service. If the requirement is not fulfilled by the organisation, then it will become a hurdle for the progression of the sector. Guests who are not satisfied will spread the news which will also create many obstacles to the business. Effective customer care is important in order to get repeated guests and also the guest tends to refer their friends also. This improves the sales and also the profit of the organisation. The reputation and the image of the organisation are improved if the customer care is good. This in turn brings more shares in the market. Especially the internal customers i.e. the employees get more of job satisfaction by caring the customers. The main goal of establishing effective customer care is satisfying or delighting the customers. It also helps to exchange more information, maintain a good relationship, trust and also to decrease the workloads and costs. In hospitality industry, customers are the king. Effective customer care will benefit the customers in many ways. It is one of the important parts of marketing mix. Quality in service will give more loyal guests. It also ensures that the services and products delivered to the customers will be of good quality. Thus, establishing effective customer care in hospitality industry is very much important for improving the growth of the organisation. EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE POLICIES: The evaluation of the effectiveness of customer service policies is an important factor to increase the growth of any organisation. The evaluation shows how the policy implemented influences the organisation. Even though most policies are practically followed only after careful considerations, there are always chances for misleading factors which might give more cons then pros for the policy. A simple example can be the usage of man power for the different sections of a hotel. Using more people for work which takes more time to be done can be a simple and effective solution. An effective customer service strategy has to be followed with considerable modifications based on the customer and their needs. Each customer is unique, so are their needs. In a customer service based roles, the colleagues will develop the capacity to differentiate the types of customers. If the situation permits, more importance can be given to customers with a higher value and who are more prone to be a regular customer. This just ensures that the specific customer goes through a different level of service hence providing equal service to all the customers. Excellent customer service is achieved when the customer is provided with what he/she wants even before they use it. The needs of the customer and how these needs are to be met with are meant to be determined. Exceeding the customers expectation always frames a name for the organisation. These needs are to be met with great care and also with consideration for other factors like cost and profit. Creating a name in the market is one challenge and maintaining it for years is a more challenging feat. The colleagues should have a good knowledge about the service the hotel can provide and also the capacity with which it has to be provided. Training for the employees should be focused and taken care of. The organisation must meet the needs of the employees and respect their decisions and ideas must be considered. Quality control is often achieved not by intensive supervision, but by building a sense of pride and the ability to work as a team. A proven method to increase the customer service skills of the employees is by sheer encouragement. This can be in any forms, as in increasing the bonus, the status in the organisation or even organising a special event. In a nut shell, happy employees provide excellent service, thus making the customers happy and make them come back again. This increases the profit and also the bonus for the employees, which makes them happy. This cycle is very crucial for any customer based organisation to stand out from the crowd.

Fear of Nuclear Weapons in Modern Society :: Nuclear Weapons Essays

"The time will come when mankind will curse the name of Los Alamos and Hiroshima (Hawkins 1983 260-261)." When nuclear weapons were first discovered back in the 1940's, no one knew the force they were going to have on the world. Many lives were taken when the United States of America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These lives could have been saved if the communication between the United States and Japan were better. Those bombs should never have been dropped. Even the scientists, who were part of the Manhattan Project thought this. Ever since the start of nuclear exploration people have feared the out comes that came from nuclear development. Albert Einstein, a German born theoretical physicist, who was living in Germany at the time Hitler came into power. Albert Einstein, Edward Teller, Leo Szilard and the rest of his team members wrote a letter in August 1939 to the United States to warn them that Germany was researching and developing nuclear weapons. The scientists were afraid that once Germany finished building the bomb, they would use it on the United States. The United States during the 1930?s was interest in making a weapon that was so powerful that it would be feared by the world. The United States government establishes a top secret plan called the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. The Manhattan project was the first quest for nuclear weapons. The Manhattan Project took place in they United States, during World War II and its purpose was to create a bomb by splitting atoms apart. This project was a success and created one of the most destructive bombs ever used by mankind, the atomic bomb. The presid ent at the time, Harry S. Truman, had to face the factors that were involved in making the decision to drop the bomb. By July 16, 1945 the United States government had tested the bomb in New Mexico. The United States Wanting to bring the war to an end with Japan decided to do what was to be one of the most deadly bombing in human history. Then on August 6, 1945 under the authorization of President Harry S, Truman the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese. The bomb hit the city of Hiroshima were it caused great destruction to the city and surrounding area. It has been reported that many civilians were killed and injured during the bomb attack.

My Super Mother Essay

For me heroes really exist in reality. And for me my super hero is my mother. My mother actually is an ordinary woman. But for me she can do extra ordinary things. She is always there in times that I feel very hopeless, that’s why I really love her. She brought me up with a strong faith and a power to face the toughest challenges in life. She is willing to help everyone’s problems or misery without anything in return. That’s why I’m so very proud of her. For me she’s the best mother in the whole world. She’s talented, pretty and very hardworking. My mother is the one who taught me how to write, read, and how to explore things in life. She provided me and my siblings the best educational opportunities that there could be. She has always pushed me to study very hard so that I can achieve my life’s goal. My mother is also the one who influenced me to have a decision in my life. My mother’s perseverance has encouraged me to live the life of an authentic person. I and my family felt so blessed to have a mother like her. She is so very protective, supportive and very caring unlike to my father. Read more:Â  Person I admire most essay Even though she is always stressed doing the household chores she has always time to help us in our assignments, projects and all the things that we need her help. That s why I and my siblings really love her she’s our living hero. For me having my mother is the luckiest thing that I had. Even though there is many times that we are having an argument. But it’s not that really serious, because my mom is very understanding. She can understand my own feelings and she’s not very strict unlike to my father. She loves cooking foods on her own, and making her own recipes. She loves spending her time cleaning the house as always, reading books and teaching my little sister her lessons. If my mom was a food I can tell that she’s the most special one. She’s one of a kind and for me she’s the most unique and delicious food that I’ve ever tasted. And if my mom was a student, she is the most talented and the brightest of all the students in class. That’s why I’m so very proud of her. And if my mom was a warrior, she is the bravest and the strongest person that I’ve ever seen. But the truth is my mom was a simple human living in this world. But for me she is the hero and the reason why I and my family keep living. I’m very thankful to God that he had given me my mother. Because the person who influences my life the most is my mother Even though sometimes she had our breakfast overcooked, we love eating the foods that she made. And even though she commits mistakes, the number of the mistakes that she did was nothing compare to the number of the times she help us to avoid to do mistakes. I admire my mother because she is a strong woman to have the courage to face our family difficulties in our everyday life, and also she always had a big heart in caring for others. My mother has sacrificed so much just to raise us. She’s not just a mother but for us she is a hero. A hero that is always there to help us in times that we feel so burdened and in times that we need her she is also always there to guide us through the right path. Pretty, supportive, protective, cheerful, brilliant, industrious, talented, understanding, amazing and unique these are just words how to describe my mother. But for me no words can tell how wonderful my mother is. That’s why I’m very happy and contented to have a mother like her.

Rocky Soccer Academy Essays

Rocky Soccer Academy Essays Rocky Soccer Academy Paper Rocky Soccer Academy Paper Case Study: #3 Rocky Soccer Academy Case Assessment Worksheet Using Case Study #3, Complete the Worksheet Provided. Use this document as your format. Answer each section within the document retaining the questions to indicate your sections. I. Evaluate Henning’s options for growing Rocky’s customer base, including: A. What are Henning’s objectives? What resources does he have? Henning’s first objective is to have a larger facility built more suited for soccer training. The awareness for his program is close to 100 percent in Fort Collins but limited in surrounding cities. His second objective is to increase awareness of his program in surrounding cities. His third objective is to gain more customers in surrounding areas and try to retain his current customers who leave the program at the age of fourteen and fifteen. His current resources are the 600 kids he trains every year. His second resource is the quality of coaches he has on his staff. His coaches are experienced soccer players who are playing professionally over seas and playing at the collegiate level. B. What elements of consumer behavior might influence his decision? Henning would be influenced in his decision by a personal need. Perreault Jr, Cannon, and McCarthy state that personal needs are concerned with an individual’s need for personal satisfaction. Examples include accomplishment, fun, freedom, and relaxation ¬- as well as a desire to make the world a better place (117). Henning obviously enjoys working with young people. His passion was so strong that it forced him to resign from his employment at the meat packing plant to teach soccer full time. With his coaching some of his customers have gone on to win national championships in the Fort Collins area. To see his customers find success on the soccer field must give him a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. He may want to bring this excitement to the surrounding areas, which would lead to full fill a social need. â€Å"Social needs are concerned with love, friendship, status, and esteem-things that involve a person’s interaction with others† (Perreault Jr, Cannon, and McCarthy 117). With his customers winning tournaments and finding success with his coaching they can share it with friends and family displaying the benefits of his coaching. Henning having success in Fort Collins would give him the confidence to enter new markets in the surrounding areas. C. What are the pros and cons of each option? The first option is to try to increase retention by developing programs targeted at kids over 14. His pros would be that he already has resources in place. The company image has a very good reputation as well. Henning’s soccer training business is one of the few companies providing soccer training. The con would be loss of interest in soccer. Soccer in America is the least popular sport in America. Baseball, football, and basketball are more wildly popular with teenagers. The second option is to develop a marketing strategy that would encourage his current customers to buy more. The pro in getting current customers to buy more would be customer retention and more revenue stream without entering into other markets. Henning could focus more attention on his current customers. The con would be missed opportunities in other markets. The third option is to try and grow the business by entering new markets and acquiring new customers in the age range of 6 to 9 years old. The pro in this option would be if customers that reach the age of fourteen and fifteen lose interest and stop receiving soccer training, he would have younger kids to fall back on in new markets. He would also have his facility and resources in place. The con would be Henning having to increase his staff to manage new customers. The fourth option is to serve more kids from Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley. The pro in option four is those cities are closer to Fort Collins and the populations combined number 140,000. There are some competitive soccer teams and very little soccer training, which means there is a need for soccer training. The cons would be the 25 mile distance from Fort Collins and the possibility that the population is not as passionate about soccer. D. Rank the options from strongest to weakest and explain why. Option 4 is to serve more kids from Loveland, Longmont, and Greeley. It is the strongest because Henning is already serving a few kids from those areas. The population combined is higher than Fort Collins. Soccer training is limited in the area. He would have more opportunities to advertise his business at soccer events in the local area. Option 2 is to develop a marketing strategy that would encourage his current customers to buy more. It is the second most attractive in that he already has a strong customer base. Product development in this area could retain customers and attract new customers. Option 1 is to retain kids that reach the age of 14 or 15 years. It is a weaker option because it focuses too much on the older kids and Henning will have to compete with other sports. To keep the older kids interested in soccer would require the sports popularity to increase, but that is difficult because in America basketball, baseball, and football are the most popular. Option 4 is to grow the business by entering new markets and acquiring new customers that range in age 6 to 9 years old. This option is the least attractive because 6 to 9 year olds would have to train under a different program, which would change the whole product. II. Select the two options you consider the most likely to be successful, defend your choice and develop marketing strategy for the two options. The first option I selected was option 4. Rocky soccer academy is well established in Fort Collins and has a great reputation in the community. Many of its customers from Fort Collins compete locally and all over the nation. Some have gone on to win national titles. Great coaching from Henning and his staff has produced positive results. All of these factors I felt were strengths. In the surrounding areas of Loveland, Longmont, And Greeley there is very little soccer training in the areas. With very little soccer training in the area, a good opportunity presented itself. The populations combined are 140,000. The population in Fort Collins is 110,000 and about 600 kids in that population acquire soccer training. From the surrounding areas Henning could possibly gain close to 600 more kids. If Henning were to gain more customers from the surrounding areas, it would justify building a larger facility. I chose to have the facility in Fort Collins. By having the facility located in Fort Collins this could turn away potential customers, making the location a weakness. To make acquiring Rocky soccer academy services more attractive, Henning could offer a one week trial free of charge and a 20 percent discount for 6 months. During the free trial period Henning can show with his coaching staff what differentiates his company from other alternatives. This would be the opportunity to sell Rocky soccer academies services, which should result in more customers. The second option I chose was option 2. Henning’s target market is current customers. I decided that he should offer a physical conditioning program that is tailored for soccer players to go along with soccer training. The added equipment needed to run this new program would justify building a larger facility. The larger facility will be built in Fort Collins. His reputation and his coaching staff are all strengths. A weakness I saw was the current customers may not see much of a point in conditioning. To alleviate some of those concerns a special promotion is needed. The first two weeks of the program would be free, giving customers an opportunity to see if they improved on the field. For those who choose to take part in the conditioning program a price increased will occur and they will have special privileges like use of a hot tub.

Talking Writing, Music and Editing with Tom Flood

Talking Writing, Music and Editing with Tom Flood Talking Writing, Music and Editing with Tom Flood Tom Flood helped us refine Reedsy from our earliest days. Now we want to share his amazing story. From songwriting to novels and finally manuscript editing, Tom has honed his knowledge of the writing craft over the years, and contributes today to our (aspirationally) literary blog.In one of our most in-depth interviews so far, what started as a conversation about Tom’s agency Flood Manuscripts moved on to cover his work as an editor, a writer, and an independent musician.Tom analyses the oft-invoked parallel between book and music publishing and what the future holds for both these industries. He also shares his own experience as a writer - he made this great observation about identifying oneself as a writer:â€Å"When people ask, ‘What do you do?’ and I answer, ‘Writer, editor, musician,’ the next question is invariably ‘Oh, what do you play?’ Writing is both less and more mysterious. Nearly everyone writes, so it engenders the second q uestion ‘What do you write?’ way less often. The more revealing ‘How do you write like that?’ comes rarely. People think skill in musicianship comes with practice and dexterity, but skill in creative writing? Like art, they believe it’s a gift. The reality is they’re the same.†His tripartite career gives Tom a unique lens through which to see what’s happening right now in the new world of publishing. His advice to writers is both practical / motivating - persevere, keep going - and informed by years of experience editing self-published authors.Hi Tom, you have an impressive portfolio and experience in writing, editing and proofreading. Which one came first in your career? In other words, what made you become an editor?Thanks, Ricardo. I came to editing via writing. I have always been a songwriter but in the 80s, buoyed by a boom of new Australian fiction engendered by the infrastructure built by the short-lived, ground-breaking Le ft government of the 70s, I began to try my pen at short stories, got one published in a short-lived journal, and finding that slow going, switched to the big picture of the novel. The success of that move (three national awards) led to connections in the world of publishing and I began occasional award judging, assessment through our major residential writers’ centre, and some editing for publishers throughout the 90s, also being commissioned to write a theatre piece and a feature film. That all petered out as I moved back towards music performance and had a stab at academia.In 2003, with a string of part-time jobs, and looking to find new income streams, I began working through the net for a few large assessment/appraisal services in other states, a relatively new industry, reading and advising across a wide range of prose writing. A year later my artist partner suggested I start my own to fund living through a PhD, and a writing client created the first Flood Manuscripts w ebsite. Within a year it was full-time assessment and clients began to ask if I would mentor them, act as agent, ghostwriter and all manner of services I had no intention of taking up. Dumping the doctorate to ride the growing self-pub wave with Flood Manuscripts, the next step was mentoring, structural editing and copy editing, and finally proofreading, as Aussie writers began to become impatient with the trade publishers and adept at dealing with the digital, their needs evolving. I keep the service personal, despite many suggestions to expand into an agency, because I like to be at the coalface.You have also both won and been a judge to major writing awards in Australia, how did that start, and what do these awards represent for you as an author? (Is that just a nice acknowledgement of your craft or something you’re genuinely proud of?)Awards! Without them Flood Manuscripts wouldn’t exist. Despite both parents writing pretty successfully (my mother, Dorothy Hewett, was a well-known poet and playwright), neither had published with a mainstream press. I made my name in fiction by winning our premier manuscript award, the prize including publication by Allen Unwin, and that novel then took out more awards, including our oldest and best known fiction prize, the Miles Franklin Award. Everything else I have been lucky enough to be involved with has stemmed from those awards. Flood Manuscripts’ clients have since taken out even more awards, mostly international, and yes, I’m very proud to be a small part of that.We are in London, and most of our audience is in the US. But you live in Australia, so can you tell us how the publishing landscape looks like over there? How â€Å"big† are ebooks and self-publishing?I think we’re trailing a decade behind USA in some aspects, particularly genre, as we are a small market and still retain a certain English literariness in our publishing landscape, largely fed by our tertiary educat ion system. That said, we were and still are ahead in acceptance of manuscript assessment /appraisal as an essential part of that landscape. Once convinced, Australians do have a fast technology take-up and self-pub is really developing into a snowball.Has the â€Å"digital revolution† truly changed your career, or do you feel you continue working with authors more or less like you did before?Flood Manuscripts is a child of the digital ‘revolution’. 98% of my work is sourced, contracted, paid and completed via the net. That has grown from about 70% over a decade. I’m receiving around one paper manuscript a year. I prefer to read and edit digitally for work, although I still like to read paper for pleasure. I like the ancient craft of bookbinding. It will be a shame if we lose that art form to the economics of the trade.Songwriting, though, has not changed for me. The pen is still mighty, the pencil mightier, and scraps of waste paper litter the study on ev ery surface. With the novel, I began handwriting it in ‘85, moved to a borrowed typewriter, then a borrowed word processor, and finally finished the last drafts on a redundant computer with bootlegged software (WordStar) from my partner’s work place. I was over 30, on the dole, and on the rebound from an art pop band in Sydney. I don’t think I actually got on the net until 2003.This is a traditional question in our interviews: does working directly with an author (indie or hybrid) make it easier or harder for you? Does the absence of a traditional publishing structure change the way you communicate with the author?Except in the early days before Flood Manuscripts, I’ve almost always worked directly with authors. I don’t court the trade publishers because there are so few here and they don’t outsource much anyway. How it continues to change is in the speed, volume and creativity of new digital ventures and what they offer to litworkers. As an assessor, keeping up with even a small part of that change is a challenge.You are also a musician, singer and songwriter in the acoustic trio Blues Angels. The music industry and the publishing one are often compared, many people proclaiming that what happened in music will happen to books. What’s your opinion on that?Conventional wisdom has had the popular music evolution in four phases: 1) sign with a big label; 2) music publishers make big money from big musicians and use some of those profits to develop new talent; 3) big musicians realise they’re leaving money on the table and set up their own labels (self-publishing), resulting in music publishers dwindling and new musicians having no corporate sponsorship; 4) digi-platforms like iTunes do the same as Amazon/KDP/Kindle and new musicians go direct to consumers (less 30%), but there is new pressure to discount or give away material for free; and we can now add phase 5) big musicians realise how much money they are leaving on the distributors’ table and abandon digital platforms (Taylor Swift/Spotify, Radiohead /iTunes). New musicians have no sponsor, make no money from Spotify and can’t sell on iTunes without a massive marketing spend.The book trade significantly differs to music in that it doesn’t have a regular large performance aspect, although writers are often performers at festivals, schools, readings, etc., and libraries aren’t really a power in the same way in the music trade, although ideas like Self-E and the digital library may significantly endanger lending rights payments in the pursuit of ‘going viral’. It’s not a matter of ‘will happen’; it already has, at least to level 4. Writing, like music, has gone digital and that digital product is being given away in the millions to create traction towards a fame of sorts and is being streamed, not quite like Spotify et al, through Kindle Owners Lending Library, but podcasting and YouTube are pushing text more into performance re audiobooks, book trailers, and even as the music industry has been digitally driven back towards the single as its principal product, so Kindle Shorts, blogging, social media publishing and other developments continue to drive fiction back towards the heyday of shorter forms. Will this be a boon to poetry? It should be, but I haven’t seen a Shorts- or YouTube-based boom in verse, though it’s early days yet. I do see bundling going on in either form by both indies and trade, both live and product-based, and I expect we’ll see even more specific-subject social media appearing, like mootis, a Twitter for legals, and new models for crowdfunding, like Patreon.This is the big picture, but as with BluesAngels, who don’t operate in the world of popular music, we do our gigs and small festivals, make our recordings and sell our music at those live gigs, then rinse and repeat. Sure, we’ve put it up digit ally on iTunes and Spotify, but we don’t expect to compete with the pop forms; we don’t have that kind of money. So far we’ve made eight cents from streaming. Indie authors can and do still exist at this same level. I have a long term client with Flood Manuscripts who self-pubbed a hardback verse novel, offset printed, and took it on the road to sell – door to door! He’s sold 15,000 over a number of years, making him a best seller in Australian poetry, and funded an audio CD, but he doesn’t register on Bookscan, nor have the poetry awards or Amazon ever heard of him.A hard question now: do you prefer being an author, and editor or a musician? Where do you feel you have more creative freedom?The last one was hard. Creative freedom might just be a curse to some. Many artists prefer a given structure within which to work, although I’m not one of them. Some like to push the boundaries of form, others to innovate within those boundaries, a nd others prefer to capitalise on proven market structures. Creative freedom is not a term I think about or relate to, perhaps because I have it? Perhaps not: like writers’ block, I don’t think you can pin down what it is. As to author, editor, musician, all three can be personally satisfying.Some say that certain media are better than others to express a particular message. Do you think music allows you to express some things that you cannot in writing, and vice-versa?As an aural form based on sound, not words, and not limited by language, only taste, music is probably capable of appealing more indefinably to the emotions, but I’m a songster, so for me it’s a vehicle to carry fewer words more urgently to the audience, kinda like poetry, but it can and does operate differently. Unlike writing, there are also visible tools, and people do appreciate visible, live craft. When people ask, ‘What do you do?’ and I answer, ‘Writer, editor, mus ician,’ the next question is invariably ‘Oh, what do you play?’ Writing is both less and more mysterious. Nearly everyone writes, so it engenders the second question ‘What do you write?’ way less often. The more revealing ‘How do you write like that?’ comes rarely. People think skill in musicianship comes with practice and dexterity, but skill in creative writing? Like art, they believe it’s a gift. The reality is they’re the same.Finally, if you had one word of advice for authors (mainstream, indie, hybrid) in 2015, what would it be?I’m a novelist! Even tweets give us more than one word, but when it comes to publishing, I shuffle between ‘Persevere’ and ‘Quit’, but ‘Time Management’ may be two words worth contemplating. Things are both worse and better for authors than at any time in the history of printing, but the history of authors is millennia older. What we’re seein g today is the very rapid furthering of the democratisation of publishing. Making money is a relatively new notion in that history. What is an author? A writer: or a writer who is published? With the rise of self-pub, ‘is published’ is changing to ‘has published’, from passive to active, but an author is simply an originator. So my advice to authors, as always, is mundane; if you enjoy writing, keep learning by reading and doing, and you will be constantly challenged to go further. It is principally a vocation. If you want to become a publisher, you’re back to square one – an ingà ©nue - set out to learn your new set of jobs thoroughly, and keep learning and doing.Thanks a lot for your time, Tom, and for sharing these fantastic insights with us.Thanks, Ricardo, for this opportunity, and thanks to the Reedsy crew for authoring this quality new service.Follow Flood Manuscripts and Reedsy on Facebook!What do you think about Tom’s story? A re we right in drawing parallels between the book and music industries? What fundamental differences do you see, and what’s the future going to look like? Leave us your thoughts, along with any question for Tom, in the comments below.

Films Of The Mid-Seventies Era Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Films Of The Mid-Seventies Era - Essay Example In the film, the character of Bobby Dupea is the archetype of numerous heroes from that period. Bobby is stuck in two worlds. He is a man who cannot fit into the American society and is making efforts to find a place which he truly belongs to. One of the outstanding features of the 1970s films was the character’s struggle to deal with the problem of alienation that was prevalent in America at that time. This emerged from the sixties when there was the rejection of both the working class and leisure class values. The film portrays how an individual is trying so hard to deal with the alienation problem without being a counter-culture hippie. The post-sixties era mostly exhibited the theme of alienation - a theme that defined the mid-seventies era. However, the films of the 1990s and 1980s era extremely reflected the alienation theme with the so bloody and violent action genre. The heroes in these movies are violent, anti-social and alienated. They generally have no societal respect. The first scenes of â€Å"Five Easy Pieces† show the main character Bobby as a typical oil mine worker. Bobby puts a lot of energy in his work to get his money. He spends his leisure time drinking beer, playing cards, watching television and bowling. He stays with his girlfriend, a beautiful waitress named Rayette Dipesto. At the beginning of the film, Bobby is reflected as a happy person, but further progress of the movie reveals a man dissatisfied with his life. Rayette clingy mature annoys Bobby so much. He loathes country music and dislikes the way his girlfriend lives her life through Tammy Wynette songs. Rayette seems to play songs for every occasion of her life. When they go out with their friends Stoney and Elton, Bobby could not enjoy the bowling. He is angry and highly competitive at Rayette’s inexperience in the game. At some point, he later cheats on his girlfriend with a woman named Sally Struthers.

German Autobahnen Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

German Autobahnen - Assignment Example The present research has identified that Atobahn are officially named as Bundesautobahn in Germany because of the reason these are build as well as maintained by federal authorities present within the country. When we talk about German Autobahn, we may see that there is no specification of speed limit for cars and other vehicles. However, the advisory speed limit is about 130 kilometers/ hr. it is also important to understand that a hard limit is also imposed on some transports. For example 60 km per hour for those buses those carry standing travelers as well as trailers that pull motorcycles. On the other hand, passengers or travelers cars and buses have hard limit of 80 km per hour. Moreover, trailers that are used to pull passenger cars have limit 100km per hour. Last but not the least, when we talk about road safety of these autobahns found in Germany, we may conclude that the situations are quite better here as compared to highways and motorways found in other European countries . The chances of any crash and accidents are fewer as compared to those present in USA.